“Little bell, little bell,
 Little ram as well,
 You, too, little sheep,
 If you’ve my tingle too,
 No sheep’s so rich as you,
 My rest you keep.”

The boy looked up and listened to this strange song which came out of the sky, and saw the pretty bird, which seemed to him still more strange.

“If one,” said he to himself, “had but that bird that’s singing up there, so plain that one of us could hardly match him!  What can he mean by that wonderful song?  The whole of it is, it must be a feathered witch.  My rams have only pinchbeck bells, he calls them rich cattle; but I have a silver bell, and he sings nothing about me.”

With these words he began to fumble in his pocket, took out his bell, and rang it.

The bird in the air instantly saw what it was, and rejoiced beyond measure.  He vanished in a second, flew behind the nearest bush, alighted, and drew off his speckled feather dress, and turned himself into an old woman dressed in tattered clothes.  The old dame, well supplied with sighs and groans, tottered across the field to the shepherd-boy, who was still ringing his bell and wondering what was become of the beautiful bird.  She cleared her throat, and coughing, bid him a kind good evening, and asked him which was the way to Bergen.  Pretending then that she had just seen the little bell, she exclaimed—­

“Well now, what a charming pretty little bell!  Well, in all my life, I never beheld anything more beautiful.  Hark ye, my son, will you sell me that bell?  What may be the price of it?  I have a little grandson at home, and such a nice plaything as it would make for him!”

“No,” replied the boy, quite short; “the bell is not for sale.  It is a bell that there is not such another bell in the whole world.  I have only to give it a little tinkle, and my sheep run of themselves wherever I would have them go.  And what a delightful sound it has!  Only listen, mother,” said he, ringing it; “is there any weariness in the world that can hold out against this bell?  I can ring with it away the longest time, so that it will be gone in a second.”

The old woman thought to herself—­

“We will see if he can hold out against bright shining money,” and she took out no less than three silver dollars and offered them to him, but he still replied—­

“No, I will not sell the bell.”

She then offered him five dollars.

“The bell is still mine,” said he.

She stretched out her hand full of ducats.  He replied this third time—­

“Gold is dirt, and does not ring.”

The old dame then shifted her ground, and turned the discourse another way.  She grew mysterious, and began to entice him by talking of secret arts and of charms by which his cattle might be made to thrive prodigiously, relating to him all kinds of wonders of them.  It was then the young shepherd began to long, and he lent a willing ear to her tales.